


Partners

by Rivulet027



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Ray Palmer, Developing Relationship, Episode Related, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, Humor, M/M, Minor Martin Stein/Clarissa Stein, POV Ray Palmer, Past Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Past Ray Palmer/Anna Loring, Past Relationship(s), Season/Series 02, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 05:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/pseuds/Rivulet027
Summary: S2. Compromised. Ray isn't able to stop the bomb, but he does manage to send Mick and himself into a time loop.





	Partners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwoAxes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoAxes/gifts).



If anyone had told Ray that he was going to die in nineteen eighty-seven while trying to diffuse a bomb in Washington D.C. he would’ve laughed. He’d have had so many questions after, but his initial response would’ve been to laugh. Ray isn’t sure why his mind is focusing on that thought as he tries desperately to find a way to save him, Mick, and not let a bomb go off. Why is Mick sitting down and giving him a pep talk, he should be running for his life?

“I can’t defuse the bomb,” he tells Mick. He doesn’t get to tell Mick that he’s figured out a way to reset time because Mick drops the donut and pulls him in. They’re still kissing when time resets. 

Ray finds himself standing outside their surveillance van wearing a Captain Cold parka. He stills and presses his fingers to his lips. He already misses that kiss, didn’t want it to end. Ray shakes his head and regards the van in front of him. He thought he’d end up just before Mick gave him the cold gun, but he’s grateful it worked at all. He’s just not sure he can have this conversation with Mick again. He’s suddenly remembering the look on Mick’s face when he came into the van. He’s suddenly feeling off balance that he’d thought Mick wanted him to be as much like Len as possible. Ray slips the parka off and drops it in the back of the van, while telling Mick he’s coming to the front. He rounds the van. Will Mick remember anything? He thinks he’s the only one he sent back, but the whole processes was rushed. He settles into the seat next to Mick, greeting him with a smile. There’s a look of relief on Mick’s face. Then Mick huffs, leans back into his seat and closes his eyes.

“Mick?” Ray asks.

“You ditched the coat,” Mick comments. He sounds grateful and Ray isn’t quite prepared for the way guilt rolls through him. He let Mick tell him to be more like Snart and he went too far with it. Mick remembers him being willing to go too far with it, needing to be told to be himself.

Ray takes a slow breath, then tells him. “That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”

Mick glances at him. “Do we have to talk about my feelings again?”

“We should probably figure out how to diffuse that bomb.”

“You tell the others. I’m going to stop Stein.”

“Wait, if we change that do we…” Ray starts to ponder outloud, then shakes his head. “He wasn’t supposed to be there anyway.”

Mick gives him a brief smile, it drops quickly from his face, but then he’s out the door and heading to catch the younger Martin Stein before he can get himself stabbed. Ray uses the comms to tell the team about the bomb and Dahrk’s plan. 

“Wait, how do you know this?” Sara asks.

Ray explains about the bomb and traveling back in time. 

Professors Stein interrupts, “So instead of stopping the bomb you sent yourself into the past, how did you account for…is Mr. Rory giving my younger self, wait...why is my younger self there? I’m supposed to be…”

“Taking your wife out for her birthday. In the original timeline that’s what you said happened, but when we were listening to Darhk, younger you interrupted and was stabbed. We’re trying to prevent a repeat,” Ray tells them.

“I doubt it was necessary for Mr. Rory to point out that my wife might like sex on her birthday,” Stein grumbles.

“It’s her birthday,” Mick tells him over the comm. “She should have a nice dinner, get laid.”

Stein sputters. Amaya asks if birthday sex is a thing and everyone else starts agreeing that it’s a thing. Ray is smiling and shaking his head at them when Mick gets back in the van to drive them back to the Waverider. He frowns at Ray a moment. “You need to remember K.I.S.S.”

“Kiss?” Ray asks, even as he’s trying to quell down the hope that this means Mick wants to kiss him again.

Mick waits for him to put it together.

“The band?” Ray hazards a guess.

“The…” Mick starts, then glares before he leans in close. “Keep It Simple Stupid. Stop the bomb, don’t stick us in a time loop.”

“Not technically a time loop. We’ve only gone back once and this time we’ll stop the bomb so we won’t go back again.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

They stop the bomb. Sara gets the box off Dahrk. Nate even saves Mary Todd’s hope chest. Then Ray finds himself outside the van wearing the Captain Cold parka again. 

“Time loop,” Mick gloats when he comes into the van.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Ray complains. “We shouldn’t have gone back.”

“So figure out how to stop it and the bomb,” Mick tells him before he goes to rescue the younger Stein, again.

This time in addition to gathering what he needs to stop the bomb Ray and Martin try to figure out how to stop the time loop. It doesn’t work and he and Mick start again.

They save the younger Stein. They tell Amaya how to get them into the state dinner and what Dahrk is up to. 

Ray knows how to stop the bomb, but he doesn’t know how to stop the time loop. Worst yet he’s sure any moment now Mick is going to rescind his offer of being partners out of pure frustration. 

“He told me I could science my way out of anything and now I science us into this and he might never forgive me,” Ray stresses to Martin as they work in the room they’ve started to convert to a lab.

“Maybe you need to have this conversation with him,” Martin advises.

“I need to figure out how to stop being in a time loop,” Ray frowns. “Besides Mick hates talking about his feelings.”

“Ray,” Martin complains. “All you’ve been talking about for the last half an hour is Mick and feelings and I for one would appreciate it if you had the conversation with him instead.”

Ray stills. He groans and apologizes.

“You need to resolve whatever it is that is upsetting you and Mr. Rory before you can concentrate on stopping the time loop.”

Ray thanks him. He’s already returned the parka, but he pauses in his room to get the cold gun. He finds Mick in the dining room with a beer in front of him. He sets the cold gun on the table.

“You want out,” Mick says. It’s not even a question, just a statement tinged with acceptance.

“No,” Ray shakes his head as he sits down. “I don’t think I understood what you were offering.”

Mick stares down at the cold gun silently, before he starts picking at the label on his beer. Ray’s not sure where to start. Mick grips the beer tightly and tilts his head. He staring at the floor when he says, “I told you I shouldn’t have tried to make you Snart.”

“He was one of a kind and you miss him,” Ray attempts to sooth. He didn’t mean to make Mick so uncomfortable.

Mick opens his mouth, closes it. He huffs in frustration. “Everything got so…I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“I think you need to, maybe not right now, but I think you need to,” Ray tells him, hoping he’s saying the right thing.

“If we weren’t on the Waverider I’d make a therapy appointment,” Mick admits. He snorts, “If Snart was alive he’d have already made me go.”

“So we’ll talk to Sara,” Ray suggests.

“She might ground me,” Mick grumbles.

“No. We need you,” Ray reassures.

Mick shakes his head. “I don’t…”

“You’re going,” Ray insists. Mick’s hands slide to the table and he slowly lifts his head to look at Ray. He meets Mick’s eyes and isn’t sure how to respond to the desperation he finds looking back at him, but Ray decides to remain firm on this decision. If Mick thinks Snart would’ve already made him go then he needs to. “Look, you’ve been pretty open about the fact that you have a mental illness and since then you’ve lost your partner and that should’ve been enough for us to realize you needed some support. You were also brainwashed and tortured and I don’t even know what else the Time Masters…”

“I’m not ready to talk about that.”

“Okay,” Ray agrees. “But we’re going to go to Sara together and tell her you need to make an appointment and then we’ll get you there.”

Mick nods, then frowns down at the cold gun.

“I’m not him,” Ray says. “but that’s a good thing. I’d never expect you to be Anna and I don’t know everything that you’re going through…”

Mick groans and leans his head back to look at the ceiling.

“No, listen,” Ray tells him. “I know you don’t want to talk about it with me, but if we’re going to be partners than we’re going to have to hash this out.”

Mick looks at Ray again. “Partners?”

“You asked and I’m saying yes, but I’m not going to take any of his things from you. I’m not going to try to be him.”

“I shouldn’t have…”

“You already apologized,” Ray reassures.

Mick gives a huff of relief and takes a drink of his beer.

“I’m not going to be a criminal either, that’s not who I am,” Ray continues, then smiles. “Though if we ever team up with the vigilante from Star City if you want to make him think I am now, I’d probably enjoy that.”

Mick grins ruefully. “That could be fun. How do you feel about suspenders?”

“Not opposed?” Ray says. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Mick smirks, then raises his eyebrows. “Done talking.”

“We are not done talking,” Ray warns as he stands and makes his way over to Mick. “There will be more talking, but later.”

He leans in and kisses Mick, and goes willingly when Mick pulls him closer. Mick cups his face, then skims hands down his chest to his sides and gripes Ray’s hips. He gives them a squeeze then shifts Ray away from him. “Go. Stop the time loop.”

“Right,” Ray agrees, before he gives Mick one more kiss and heads back to the lab. 

This time they stop the bomb and Sara manages to fool Dahrk again, but Nate isn’t able to save Mary Todd’s hope chest. Time doesn’t reset. Mick kisses him when they realize they’re out of the time loop. Mick pulls away to tell him, “If that hadn’t worked I’d have just dragged you to your room and we’d have spent this loop fucking.”

“I didn’t need to know that,” Jax complains over the comms.

“We could go do that now,” Ray suggests.

Mick laughs.


End file.
